Modern Quilts With A Twist

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I’ve been thinking about what inspires my quilt designs, and the first thing that came to mind was the beautiful or fun or amazing quilts I see at shows, guild meetings, retreats, wherever. Here are a few of my favorite quilts for inspiration.

I love the variety of bright colors and the tiny pieces in this one:

Quilt made by Jerri from TINY pieces of Liberty of London fabric

And this is a favorite because of the bright colors and eccentric design:

Cinco de Mayo, made by Renny Jaeger; pattern by Karen K Stone

This unusual design appeals to me:

Rena was given a circle cutter at the last retreat, and she went wild!

Pamela Wiley’s excellent workmanship and eye-popping designs make her quilts among my favorites:

Outside In by Pamela Wiley

I like the use of color in this next one, as well as the movement generated by the curved piecing and curved quilting:

In case you haven’t been reading my blog long enough to know about the condom quilt, here is a brief summary:

A couple of years ago I wanted to make a quilt from a QR code in such a way that the entire quilt top could be scanned to open the target website. Since I was going to be putting in a lot of effort, I wanted a QR code that had some meaning for me.

At that time I was working in public health, spending much of each day helping patients cope with various problems that might have been prevented by appropriate use of condoms.

When I looked for a condom-related QR code, I found that Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and Hawaiian Islands (PPGNW) had developed a QR code to be placed on their condom packages. Scanning the code linked to PPGNW’s “Where Did You Wear It?” site. The goal was to encourage safer sex through condom use.

The Original Code

My colorized version of the code

PPGNW graciously agreed to let me use their QR code in my design. I colorized their code and made my quilt, checking after construction of each section to be sure the whole thing still scanned correctly.

This is the finished quilt. That tiny embedded QR code leads to my blog.

I showed the quilt anywhere I could. (It isn’t just younger people who need safer sex.) That included guilds, quilt shows, and the folks in my office. After a year of showing it to anybody who would listen, I donated the quilt to PPGNW to be used in any way they wish.

I was very pleased recently to receive this picture of the PPGNW management staff with the quilt. That funny looking guy is their condom mascot.

The folks at PPGNW report that the quilt has sparked discussion, especially about the interaction of traditional crafts and technology. I enjoyed this quilt from start to finish and I’m glad it is now in its home.

After making the Lombard Street quilt and sending it off to the shop where I’ll be teaching that pattern, I decided to make a little one. (The pattern includes three sizes.)

I cut the triangles from my 3-1/2 inch scraps, and had almost enough scraps to cut all 200 triangles–very little yardage was used up for this part of the process.

I decided on purple for the background and made a few test blocks. Looking at the test blocks, I particularly liked the triangle with the one big dot in the middle. I also decided these triangles would look better with a light grey background, so naturally I had to make another quilt to use that purple background fabric 😉

I love dotted fabric, so I looked through my stash,finding about 30 different fabrics with dots of some kind. I cut another 200 triangles and here are the sample blocks. Aren’t they cute? More later…

One of our daughter’s former room mates is getting married and asked if I would make a T shirt quilt from shirts both she and her fiance have gathered in their various athletic pursuits.

She decided to use the back of the quilt as a guest book, then use the quilt on their couch as a wedding memento. I thought that was a great idea! Who ever looks at the wedding guest book again? The quilt, however, is a fun combination of “his and hers” and will serve a useful purpose after the wedding.

I ordered this cross-hatched backing, thinking it would be relatively good for people to sign.

Carolyn Friedlander fabric, 108″ wide

I used very thin polyester batting (Quilter’s Dream Request Loft poly) so the quilt will be fairly flat for signing. We’ll use fine point sharpies I am leaving the backing unwashed in the hope that the finish on it will limit bleeding.

The wedding is only a couple of weeks away, so I’m off to deliver the guest book!

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I’ve had this Jane Sassaman fabric for several (5?) years now, but I love it so much it’s been hard to decide what to do with it.

Garden Divas fabric by Jane Sassaman

Coincidentally, I’ve also been meaning for years (more than 5?) to make a one-block wonder quilt. In case you don’t know, one-block wonders are hexagonal blocks made out of 6 equilateral triangles. Usually the triangles are identical so that the block looks like a kaleidoscope.

I think you can see the outline of the hexagonal block and its triangles here

Finally, I got the fabric and the one-block wonder idea together, and here are the blocks. They are just pinned together, and I expect to re-arrange them many times before I decide on a final design.That black half-hexagon in the upper left corner is what I’ll do to make the edges of the final design even.

I thought about adding some focus to the design by inserting small, solid-color lines at random places, line this:

I’m not sure I like that, but scattered black triangles are a possibility:

Or maybe not. Suggestions?

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My friend Claire made me aware of Threads of Resistance, “a juried exhibition of work created to protest the Trump administration’s actions and policies”. I usually avoid politics here, since this is a blog about quilting. But I am very concerned about some of the Trump administration’s plans, so I’m making an exception. Here is my quilt, the Statue of Liberty wearing a hijab, because it’s un-American to exclude immigrants based on religion.

The Statue of Liberty stands for freedom, including freedom of religion.

As always, I learned a lot doing this. First, there are a TON of public domain pictures out there. I finally found a couple showing the Statue from the perspective I wanted, and sort of improvised from there. Second, it IS possible to find verdigris-color fabric, and it’s easier than I thought because everyone seems to have a different idea about just what shade “verdigris” is.

I drew my design on a big piece of paper then traced it onto the verdigris fabric. I quilted the rays on the background, then cut out the statue and horizon pieces and fused them to the background. I consulted one of Sue Bleiweiss’ books about how to do the black outline, but ended up not using her method because I was too far down my own road before I consulted the book! I would like to say I think a project through thoroughly before beginning, but the truth is that often I have no idea how I’m going to do something until I’m doing it!

I outlined most of my drawn lines with black thread, but then had to go back over the lines in the face with marker to make them stand out. One final lesson: Kona cotton was a poor choice for fusible applique; the weave is much too loose. I had to fray-check the edges even after I fused them, and then had to go back and trim some “whiskers” even after I had satin stitched the edges. From now on I’m sticking to Michael Miller Cotton Couture, which is a much finer weave (similar to the hand of the batik here, which gave me no trouble with fused applique).

If you’d like to make a quilt to submit for the Threads of Resistance exhibit, which is juried, click on the highlighted name and it will take you to the link you need. And if you disagree with my politics, please do not take offense–allowing differences is what America is all about.

Cheryl Arkison is one of several people to suggest putting together scraps of the same color to make a quilt block (or fabric from which to cut quilt pieces). Cheryl calls hers “slabs” and makes them big–15 inches square finished.

Above is the quilt I made from a slab swap with one of my quilt groups a couple of years ago. I had asked for slabs made from the yellow/orange family, and I loved what I got. But I’m not one to leave well enough alone, so I cut them up and made the quilt shown above.

A relative-who-will-remain-nameless looked through my quilts online and asked for something similar, but in a larger size.

I’ve had fun collecting orange and yellow fabrics. My friend Linda donated a large bag of orange “scraps”; I felt free to ask her since she claims to hate orange 😀 Then she brought me a big cut of solid orange to go with the scraps!

Linda even found an orange patterned bag to put her scraps in!

The rest came from my stash and from a few things I bought while travelling. I improvised the squares, featuring a few funky fabrics in each one from the fabrics I bought especially for this quilt.

Then I used Moda Bella Amelia Blue to sash each square and cut the sashing so they are all wonky. Each will finish 18″ square with sashing.

This one will be big enough that it will need to go to the long-arm quilter. I’ll have more pictures when it’s finished.

Gratitude is always a good practice, so it’s especially nice to have a holiday specifically dedicated to thanksgiving. Here are 10 reasons I’m thankful for quilting:

Every project is a new learning experience. Even if it is, sometimes, “another *%@!! learning experience” 🙂

A learning experience!

There is no failure. Projects that don’t turn out as planned can be recycled into something. (It may take a while to figure out what.)

This one had to be cut up and made into placemats!

Friends. Quilting is a great way to meet interesting people and make new friends. I love making friends online, too, even though I may never meet them in person. It’s such fun that people from 3000 miles away follow my blog and I follow theirs.

A new friend holding up one of my quilts at a recent guild talk

Quilting is a great creative outlet, whether or not I choose to be an “artist”.